St. Patrick's Day

This year St. Patrick's Day was on a Saturday and all the parades were the weekend before which meant 2 weeks of celebrating my favorite holiday of the year!   

 

We totally underestimated how big the little town of Milford's St. Patrick's Day parade would be!  Because of this we were only able to see half of the people we were planning on watching the parade with.    [We'll know better for next year.]

 

 Best.Float.EVER!!

And DH was so kind he let me have a day off to celebrate with my friends.  But not until after our lil family made an appearance at the bar!  The only day of the year it's acceptable in the U.S. to have a baby in a bar.  The Chiklits need to learn their roots! 

Cooperative but not so sure if the head costumes are necessary!

My New Toy!

The girls got DH and I a new fancy pants DSLR!! I haven't been able to do much reading yet to figure out all the fancy pants things I can do with our new beauty but I have to say, on it's own it does a damn good job all by itself.

I was able to get outside with the Chiklits and try her out this last week. Here's what she spit out:

 

 

 

V thought she wanted to have some "me" time but quickly realized she couldn't stand to be so far away from her sister

  

 

I Vow

"I did the best I could" seems to be the latest phrase. I've heard in multiple times from family members this year, I seem to be reading it on FB status updates and even in blogs now. The worse is when it's followed by "I'm sorry if that was not good enough for you."

I vow, here, today on Friday, the sixteenth of March, two thousand twelve that I will NEVER say that to my Chiklits!! It is such a cop out. What I hear when that comes out of someones mouth is "I'm so selfish, I always put my needs first" or "I am a huge f**k up". It's really pathetic and I suppose even sad as to what "the best" is for some people. That's fine if they feel that's their best - everyone is allowed their own opinion. There is just a better way of saying such a thing like, "I did all I knew to do at the time" or "I didn't know any better".

Don't give me some bull shit line about "doing the best you could". And that is why I will not feed that same line to my girls. I know there is no manual on child rearing and we all do what we feel is right only later on in life to be told by said children that we sucked. (Well hopefully my girls won't think that.) But when and if they do call me out on my faults I will NEVER tell them "I did the best I could" - there is always better.

Kids change EVERYTHING!!

I've read that having kids changes everything and have been told having kids changes everything and even after having kids I didn't realize this until DH and I went back in blog time and faced the rough reality that in 6 mths. pre-baby we did more than in the last 2 years while incubating and then raising our Chiklits during their first year!

While planning a skydiving adventure once gave me major anxiety, now taking a trip to the library for story time with the Chiklits does! It's funny the things that seemed like such a big deal pre-babies. And I know one day I'm going to laugh when the anxiety I had about going to story time is replaced by the terror of the Chiklits heading off to the real world of Kindergarten! This is just going to get worse as time goes on; junior high, high school, driving, leaving me to go to college...

Last nights adventure going back in time all started because neither Dave nor I could remember the year we went to Miami & West Palm Beach. I knew my memory was crap and I count on DH but if he can't remember?!?! It reminded me why I started to keep a blog and why I NEED to keep up with it as best I can since I haven't kept a person journal in years and see no time in starting now.

Best of February

There are a couple more "Life after twins" posts I still want to write but I'll have to come back to those at another time...

I need to get my 366 project pictures for the month of Feb. up before it's already April!

I love catching them sleeping!

The GIANTS won the superbowl!! And V still fits into a 3-6 mth. t-shirt at 1!


Chiklits turned 1!




They love playing hide and seek in the curtain.


"Oh crap, she found us!"


We started running again








Prepping for spring training




DH teaching V how to play the drum

I'm definitely not getting a picture a day but I'm trying to capture as many "moments" as I can even if the photo quality isn't that great. Even the "moments" are hard to catch some days - they just happen so fast and are over before I can grab the camera.

Best Compliment Eva'

Today my lab mate came back from her maternity leave. Another little girl for our lab - this one makes 6 in just 4.5 years!!

As we were catching up on her last 2 months of being a new mom she said to me, "I have so much respect for you."

I'm not sure if it was what she actually said or how she said it (I think a bit of both), but I actually blushed! And in my usual, don't know how to accept a compliment, I turned the conversation right back to her and her new beautiful baby girl.

I can't think of any other compliment in my life that has hit me as hard as this one. (Heck maybe it's that time of the month coming...) And that same compliment coming from anyone other than a brand new mom of a singleton wouldn't mean as much.

My first year with twins; running

I seem to have re-kindled my love with running recently. It's been a bumpy road but I think I'm finally back!! And it's going to be a loooong road back to where I want to be but the journey has to start somewhere!

All this unseasonably warm weather and this fun virtual marathon I fell upon (26.2 miles in 31 days) has helped get me back into gear. Ugh, getting back into shape is such a drag! And every.single.time I get myself into this predicament I remind myself not to ever let myself get out of shape again! Sadly these days I seem to need motivation to keep on track. I need a reason [other than the fact that the girls LOVE going out for runs with their mommy] to psych myself up to get out there and push 34lbs. (and gaining) up and down the hills in my neighborhood. So I've set some goals for this summer and fall running season. And I have completely taken running a marathon this year off of that list. What is the rush?! I had to take off 4 years of running to get 2 of the best training partners a momma could want.

They helped me shed all the baby weight and now they are going to get me into shape to run a couple half marathons this season! And if all goes well maybe next year we'll look into taking a vacation somewhere fun to tackle that post-baby marathon.

The beginning of getting back into shape: 4 miles @ 11min. pace! Yikes!!! Humbling...